Spookies and Smoochies with Isabel Cañas

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Hey gool friend, it's me Adrian
or Aiden. Either way, I want

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to ask you to wish SUSTO a
happy birthday. As we celebrate the upcoming

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fifth anniversary of Sustal and its dedication
to exploring the rich tapestry of Latin,

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American and Hispanic folklore, I invite
you to join me in taking this paranormal

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project to the next level. Over
the past five years, I've delved deep

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into the mysterious realms of ghostly apparitions, supernatural legends, and chilling tales that

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have captivated audiences worldwide. Now,
as I embark on the next chapter of

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this journey into the unknown, I
need your support to enhance your experience as

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a listener. Your generous donation will
allow me to invest in a new recording

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setup, ensuring that future spine chilling
narratives are captured with crystal ball clarity and

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devilish detail. With upgraded equipment,
I'll be able to host ghoulish guests with

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greater ease and transport you even deeper
into the heart of darkness, where legends

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come alive and the paranormal awaits.
Every dollar contributed will aid in advancing the

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quality of SUSTOL, enabling me to
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Latin American and Hispanic cultures with the
world. Join me in celebrating five years

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of fear inducing tales and help me
amplify this spooky saga for many more to

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come. Together, we can unlock
the secrets of the supernatural and keep the

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spirit of storytelling alive. To make
a donation, you can visit gofund dot

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me slash one zero, BC,
DC two seven. Thank you for your

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support and may the spirits guide you
on your journey through the unknown Eternally yours

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Adrian or Aidan either way, A
girlfriends It's me Adrian or Aiden either way.

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I am still your host and you
are still listening to or watching Sustal,

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the podcast of Ouki's Booky Scary Stories. Gool Friends, welcome back.

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That is right, this is another
video episode of Sustal and I'm sorry,

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but I'm not sorry for doing two
back to back interview episodes. I was

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just so extremely, extremely excited for
today's episode. You have already seen in

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the title. If you are a
best goolfriend on Patreon, then you already

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saw the sneak peek over on patreon
dot com slash Sustal podcast. Today on

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Sustal, we have Isabelle Ganias,
the author of The Acienda and Vampires of

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Norte, among many other pieces.
Isabel is an amazing writer. She was

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also an amazing guest. I'm so
so excited. Oh my god, this

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is I feel like it's the first
and I think I said this to Isabelle

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off recording. This felt like the
first kind of no disrespect to anybody,

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but this felt like meeting a celebrity
to me, just because I read her

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first book, The sna many months
ago. I was on as Spooky Tails

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to do a book review on that, So if you haven't listened to that

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episode, make sure to go to
listen to theirs because that was such a

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fun episode to do. And then
when I heard or saw rather that Isabelle

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was releasing a second novel, I
knew immediately that I wanted to read it.

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And then I found her online presence
and I was like, wow,

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she's a ghoulie. Like she is
a ghoul I knew that we were going

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to get along, and you will
see or hear it on today's episode.

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Isabelle was just a phenomenal time to
be around, and I'm so excited for

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all the work that not only she
has already created, but that she will

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create in the future. Before we
move on, I want to give a

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huge shadout and thank you to the
organizers and the hosts of the vipoc like

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d NX Pop Media Symposium that I
was at last week. It was so

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much fun to be around other creatives, to meet people in the community.

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Again. You all know how much
I love meeting you all irl, So

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if you were there, it was
so nice to meet you. Thank you

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for swinging by. I truly appreciate
it, and like I need to think

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of something to do. I think
I'm going to implement some sort of discount

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on my merch table for the people
who show up to these events and say,

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hey, yeah, I listened to
your show or I'm a Patreon subscriber

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as a thank you for going the
extra mile and not even if it's just

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for me just showing up in person
to these kinds of events, it means

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a lot to all types of creators. So again, thank you to everybody

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who showed up and who attended my
workshop. I had such a fun time.

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I felt my like professor kind of
oats. If you are on watching

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on Patreon, I'll put in some
clips or pictures over this, But yeah,

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it was such a great time.
Up next, I think the next

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event that I have coming up in
person is the Curious Twins at the Black

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Swan Inn. They are hosts being
a psychic and Spirit festival. I believe

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that is May seventeenth and eighteenth.
Again, the link to get your tickets

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is on my link tree. I
will throw that up on the website too,

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but again, if you go visit
my link tree that has all the

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links listed, it should be the
top option there and you can get a

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ticket for that. And I'll also
be doing the VIP paranormal investigation the evening

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before the actual festival. So so
excited to go and do that again.

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Curious Twins. I've been to one
of their events, I've tabled at one

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of their events, and they are
such gracious, generous hosts. This next

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one I will be tabling and also
presenting at. So very excited for that.

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That's about all the updates for today. As always, if you have

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your own scary stories that you would
like me to read on a Letters from

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the Beyond episode or share it on
social media because it can also be photo,

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video, audio recording. Whatever you
think should be shared online. You

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already to know how to do that. Send it in a DM via social

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media that's at Sustal Podcast on every
social media platform. Email it to Sustal

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podcast at gmail dot com, hit
the contact button on sus podcast dot com,

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leave it in a five star review
on Apple Podcasts, or in the

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Q and A on Spotify, and
shout out thank you so much to the

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people that are filling out and interacting
with the show. If you're listening on

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Spotify, filling out that Q and
A box and answering the questions that I'm

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either posing on the podcast itself or
in as the prompt for the Q and

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A, feel free to use that
to send me whatever you want. I

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love hearing from you all, and
I got really great feedback about the Paranormal

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News segment that I'm going to be
introducing to the standard episodes. So one

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more time, thank you all so
much for doing that. I love hearing

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from you. I truly take it
into consideration and I really appreciate it.

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So with all of that being said, I'm going to read her bio really

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quickly, although she will introduce herself
shortly. I just want to read this

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from her website and you can find
all the links to follow Isabelle online in

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the description of this video or episode
wherever you are watching or listening, and

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this says. Zipel Kanya's is a
Mexican American speculative fiction writer. After having

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lived in Mexico, Scotland, Egypt, Turkey, and New York City,

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among other places, she has settled
in the Pacific Northwest. She holds a

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doctorate in Near Eastern languages and civilizations
and writes fiction inspired by her research and

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her heritage. Again, so excited, please welcome to the pod Isabelle Khayees.

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Hey, girlfriends, so very very
excited to have our guests here today.

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You already heard in the intro and
so on the title and if you

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are following me online, you have
seen me just absolutely losing my mind over

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doctor isabel Kanyas. Thank you so
much for being here. I mean,

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I couldn't do it justice. So
could you please introduce yourself to the people.

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Absolutely, thank you so much for
having me. I was so thrilled

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when you reach out because, like
I said, I'm just a fan of

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the pod. You know it's I'm
It's about Kanye's. I am a speculative

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fiction writer, which is, I
guess, my sly way of saying.

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I really like genre fiction and I
love all shades of it and I can't

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stop myself from writing it. And
yeah, my novels are The Espienda and

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Vampire Zavel Note, which was a
USA Today bestseller and it's available for purchase

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wherever fine books are sold. And
I have some more stuff coming out the

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pipe, not this year but in
twenty twenty five. And that's pretty much

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all I can say about that.
But yeah, I live in the Pacific

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Northwest. I have a very very
demanding Aris daughter, and I'm just trying

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to just try to get by and
write the next draft. Yeah, I

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mean those Aris, they will they
will get you. I'm a Scorpio.

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I have Scorfeo all the way down
the charts. That Waterfire Comba, Yeah

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it's you know, she was dueing
Toaurus season and my sister is a Taurus

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and she and I get along like
a house on fire. And I was

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so ready for that like situation,
and she rerived two weeks early. And

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she's who she is and I love
her. But man, it's fine.

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I bet, I bet well.
So this wasn't in the prepared questions because

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I hadn't finished reading Vampires of Norte
yet, but I read it from cover

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to cover, meaning I read the
author's notes and you saw my TikTok,

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and if you all haven't seen it, go watch it again. I cried

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in it because it was so beautifully
written and I felt so seen, And

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I feel like anybody who listens to
Sustal and kind of gets the idea of

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it and the feeling that I'm trying
to emulate with the show is going to

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love that author's note. But you
do mention the Rio Grande Valley, So

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I'm curious to your ties to the
valley because I am from nine to five

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six, so nice. Yeah.
My mom was born in San Benito and

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she you, was raised in harling
Gin. She calls it the one horse

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town or even the horse left.
She moved to Chicago when she was eighteen

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for college and pretty much never went
back. All my family left, my

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immediate family, so like my aunts, my grandparents left the valley I think

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in the eighties and are now in
Austin. But the valley is very much.

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I think you could call me like
a diasporic member of the valley,

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I guess because I've never lived there
myself. But like when it came to

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writing Vampires of Alte, I,
well, it's kind of a long story,

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so I hope unto it, please
do so. I think it started

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to come from conversations I was actually
having with my mother in law, who

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was going through a phase where she
was super into genealogy, like really went

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down the rabbit hole of like tracing
their family lineages, like their their mayonnaise

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on whitebread super super white, like
Scottish, Welsh, English, and so

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like those people who have records and
like kept those records really really well,

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and so she could trace things back
to like you know, the eighteenth century,

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and like, well this person did
this job, and this person was

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a weaver and such and such,
and she wrote all these she wrote up

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all this stuff about it to like
compile for her future grandchildren and with like

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photos and cool little historical notes.
And I was like, oh, this

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is such a fun exercise, you
know, like a plotting. I'm a

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historian, so like this stuff gets
me. I'm very nerdy about it.

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And I thought it was cool.
And then she turned to me and she

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was like, I want to include
you and this of course, so like

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where are your documents? And so
my grandpa is from a town in Tamolifas

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called Padilla, which was flooded in
the nineteen sixties when the government built a

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dam over the over I think the
river is called Purificacium and it was very

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biblicult and flooded the town. So
the church where like all the documents were

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kept, like baptism records and stuff, is underwater. So the cemetery where

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my great grandmother is buried is underwater, and so you know, it's one

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of them. And so and he
immigrated to the US when he was fourteen

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in the forties. And my great
grandmother, on the kind of set of

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the family, she was also an
orphan. She left doing the revolution,

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and so I was left with this. I was left, you know,

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she was looking at my mother in
law, was looking for a specific kind

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of family history, and for that
my hands were empty. And it got

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me thinking like I felt I had
all. I was all up in my

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feelings about it. You know.
It was a very weird feeling to look

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at like my family and think like
what do we have And the answer is,

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of course so much, but it
can't be quantified in this same way

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that this genealogy vendor that my mother
in law was on was looking for.

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And so when it came to my
family's history, I lived intend in California

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for a long time as a kid, and I've experienced like more xenophobia and

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like anti Mexican sentiment in southern California
any other place I've lived in the world.

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It was it was, it was, it was fun. And one

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question I got love that got lobbed
at me all the time, in good

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faith theyre and bad was when when
did your family come to this country?

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And I didn't have an answer.
I didn't have a clean and tidy answer.

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And because yeah, my grandfather immigrated
at one point, my great grandmother

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did. But like when it comes
to the Kanya side of the family,

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it's like, well, they've been
on the valley, Like if you counted

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back like minimum five generations maybe six, Like that's as far back. Like

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my mom was like, oh,
yeah, we have records, so like

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there's like some some stories say like
eighteen twenty one, which is Mexican independence,

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Like my family did not come to
the United States. The United States

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came to us, And when I
realized that it took this immense weight,

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it took this weight of the colonized
narrative of my family history off my shoulders

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and I and there was suddenly this
space that I was a little possessed to

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write into. I realized, like, this is the story of so many

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people in this country, a lot
of people in the valley, this is

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their family history. It's like,
yeah, we've been here. I have

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a friend who's from Arizona who's like, yeah, the United States came to

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us too, you know, in
the eighteen forties. And so I kind

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of wanted to disrupt this narrative of
like when did your family come to this

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country, as if it were an
empty space that people came to, which

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is of course a very fucked up
notion. And also I wanted to write

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into I kind of started. I
have pieces of my family history. I

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have stories from my grandparents that are
very precious to me and that I'm going

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to that I have been even more
faithful too, in terms of like exactly

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what they said, what the family
stories are, what happened to these people?

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And future works for vampires that I'll
noticin what I kind of wanted to

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do was imagine almost I kind of
think of it as like a speculative genealogy.

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Yeah, you know, the the
birth records and the marriage records,

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Like these things are underwater. These
things went up in flames during the revolution,

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So like what do I have?
I have stories, and I have

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a place, and this place is
immensely rich in folklore, in tall tales,

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in ghosts and stories, and so
I just started writing. And that's

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how Vampires that Elk kind of came
to be. Yeah, I love that

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I've kind of had that conversation.
That's a journey that I've been on as

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well, This like idea that knowing
your your roots, knowing one's roots is

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almost like a privilege, you know, because some of us don't have that,

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and I did. I did the
twenty three and me and I know

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that's kind of like a touchy subject
for some people, but whatever, I

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gave my DNA to Amazon or something, so I did that. And the

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thing that I've really enjoyed about that
journey is that they're constantly updating it.

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That's my cat's tail, by the
way. They're constantly updating that information.

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As they get more, and so
I've been able When I initially did it,

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it was basically just like Mexico,
right, But you know there's so

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much more to that than just Mexico, right, And so they've been able

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to kind of narrow down my genealogy
to a region in Wahaka, and so

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I thought that was such a good
It was a huge discovery for me.

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And so this, you know,
this conversation about like, you know,

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some of us have lost that kind
of line or that trail to I guess

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like our history, which can inform
so much right as you would know.

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Yeah, it's just a really I
think it's a point that I really enjoyed

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that that you brought up. With
that being said, touch on it a

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little bit, but I wanted to
know if you could tell us about your

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journey as a writer and your experiences
as a writer, especially living in different

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countries. You mentioned that you've lived
in several places, and so could you

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maybe talk to that little bit.
Yeah, absolutely, I was. I

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began my journey writing as like an
eleven year old writing Lord of the Rings

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skin in fiction because oh I'm an
enormous nerd. I was homeschooled, we

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lived in Mexico City when I was
learning how to read and write, so

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like kindergarten, that kind of age. And when we moved back to the

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US, I remember having I don't
remember actually having an accent, but I

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remember being very irritated that other people
didn't like talk like me, and when

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they were reading in English in our
second grade class. And my mom says

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it was for an intellectual experiment,
but she took me and my sisters out

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of elementary school and homeschool desk.
So I read voraciously, like do I

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have command of basic arithmetic? No? Do I understand? Did I ever

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take physics? No? Did I
read absolutely like a mad woman? Absolutely?

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I did. And so my education, my older sister called it running

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barefoot through books. I read a
lot of history, I read a lot

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of fantasy, and so that is
where and once I started reading it and

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I realized that I was able to
write, you could not stop me.

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The only thing that did stop me
was when I was seventeen, I was

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in a writing workshop at Brown University. I had the opportunity to take like

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a summer class alongside college students,
and I was, you know, seventeen

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and terrified and so excited, and
the instructor within the first few weeks mocked

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me in front of the class for
writing fantasy. And I was like,

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looking back, I'm like, you
asshole, that's a child you're mocking.

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Yeah. Also, Brown is like
known for it's like, you know,

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welcome, It's very welcoming towards slipstream
and genre nolds. Among MFA programs in

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the US, it's like among them
who are welcoming to genre fictions. I

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was like, bro, what is
going on? Anyway? I stopped writing

256
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for a long time. I think
it wasn't until my last year. I

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journaled. I wrote very very bad
poetry, terrible poetry. We'll never see

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a live day. And but I
was always journaling, journaling, journaling when

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I was living abroad, and so
I had a I had. I was

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always putting my feelings into words,
and the feelings that I have while living

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abroad very much informed who I am
as a writer today, as you rightly

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guessed by asking me this question.
I went to college in the United Kingdom.

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I was in Scotland for my for
undergrad and for my master's. While

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I was an undergrad, I studied
air, so I lived abroad. I

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did my third year broad in Cairo
during twenty eleven and twenty twelve, which

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is the air of Spring, and
I lived in Jordan, I lived in

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Turkey. Over the course of my
twenties, I bounced around a lot.

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And one thing that I found very
interesting and edifying and kind of screwed up

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way was how in the US,
and I mentioned earlier, in southern California

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in particular, people would be like, Oh, hey, Mexican, where

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are you, Like, when did
your family get here? What part of

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Mexico are they fround? Blah blah
blah. I have those conversations, you

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know, all the time, and
it became very normal. And suddenly,

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when I was in the UK,
and especially when I was in the Middle

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East, I was identified as other
and like, you're not like the other

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Americans, You're not like Tallblada from
Connecticut, Like explain this, explain yourself.

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And I suddenly was forced, like
in many conversations in many different contexts,

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to create a narrative for who I
was and why I looked and sounded

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and spoke a certain way. Like
when I was in the Middle East,

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in particular, my friends and I
the friends I was studying abroad with were

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British and American, and when I
lived in Turkey, the friends I was

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with were predominantly American, and I
have a litany of experiences where people would

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say to me like, oh,
you're not like them, You're clearly Arab

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or no no, no, no, no, you're definitely Turkish. To

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your dad, he's Arab, right, so your mom she's Arab, right.

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I was like, no, actually
a Mexican, and they'd be like

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no, no, no, no, no, that's not real, Like

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you're more like us than you are
like them. Explain it. It was

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very so there was this constant it
was a daily conversation with myself really trying

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to explain why I was different,
which I think is a very I'm still

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trying to like work it out with
myself, like what it means for me

292
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and my writing, but it is
when you're constantly asked to turn your experiences

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into a narrative. I think it
probably prepared myself for the rigamarole that is

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traditional publishing and is constantly demanding that
bypok and otherwise marginalized writers perform their marginalizations

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in a specific way and fit a
certain type of narrative. But what I

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think it drove home to me?
Was it positioned like me vis a vis

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my history in such a way that
I felt both distanced from it and closer

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to it. Like I read I
don't know if you've read The House of

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the Spirits by Isabe, but I
read it when I was like in a

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tiny, little breathing Garrett in Scotland, when I was very much at a

301
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very lonely part of my life,
when I was in university, and it

302
00:23:02.920 --> 00:23:08.000
felt like coming home. And I
felt so powerfully close to home, even

303
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though the woman who wrote this book
is Chilean and she wrote it ages ago,

304
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and like it's not the same as
my family history. But there was

305
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something about the way that characters interacted
with each other, the way that they

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brought stories to the table, and
the way that they talked about their own

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past and their future, to me
just felt so powerfully home that I think,

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yeah, so I think with these
experiences living abroad, for me,

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what they drove home, it was
like, yes, they're parts of the

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world in histories that I'm so interested
in that are so far from home.

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I have a PhD in the eve
Islamic literature. I lived in Turkey and

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00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:47.720
studied Turkish and studied the Ottomans,
and I taught Islamic history like that stuff

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00:23:47.720 --> 00:23:52.359
brings me an enormous amount of nerdy
joy. But whenever I was abroad,

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I was reminded so powerfully of how
connected I was to back home. Despite

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00:23:57.759 --> 00:24:06.839
how my history has been erased or
tried a rasure was is a very strong

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00:24:07.000 --> 00:24:12.920
theme I think in my recent family
history or attempts at erasure and forced assimilation.

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Despite all of that, I can't
change who I am. And these

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are the stories that I I don't
always want to write them, but I

319
00:24:25.880 --> 00:24:30.680
can't step myself from writing them.
I think sometimes writing from this raw place

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brings me. It forces me to
be vulnerable and as a scorpio, I

321
00:24:36.440 --> 00:24:41.079
hate that, do not perceive me. I don't want this, but I

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kind of have to. And yeah, it's it's and I think on the

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flip side, it's really hard,
but it allows me to connect to readers

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00:24:48.920 --> 00:24:52.000
who like you read Vampires that I'm
wanted it and it resonated with you.

325
00:24:52.200 --> 00:24:59.160
It's because it's I don't know,
the beautiful thing. Yeah, I mean

326
00:24:59.200 --> 00:25:02.960
I'm and I'm so grateful for that. And I feel like so many other

327
00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:07.039
people are as well, I feel
like I just this whole time, I'm

328
00:25:07.039 --> 00:25:11.720
thinking, you're kind of like the
you know, like the Dose Seki's most

329
00:25:11.720 --> 00:25:15.599
interesting man in the world. That's
you. You are the most interesting author

330
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in the world. It's just like
these many lives that you've lived, and

331
00:25:18.319 --> 00:25:23.920
it like it really provides such like
a really unique and like interesting perspective that

332
00:25:25.039 --> 00:25:30.359
you put into your writing. Yeah, it's just yeah, it's I feel

333
00:25:30.359 --> 00:25:33.279
like I'm just going to be complimenting
you the whole this whole interview because I

334
00:25:33.319 --> 00:25:37.359
am such an absolute fan and just
heads up again, for anybody who has

335
00:25:37.400 --> 00:25:41.720
not read your novels The Scanda or
Vampires of Ante, you absolutely need to

336
00:25:41.799 --> 00:25:45.319
check these out. You also have
written a lot of short fiction. I

337
00:25:45.359 --> 00:25:48.799
saw you've done a lot of fantasy, writing a lot of sci fi and

338
00:25:48.880 --> 00:25:52.279
horror, and so you have plenty
of work out there in the world.

339
00:25:52.319 --> 00:25:56.400
And so I encourage everyone to go
and seek out that work. And it

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makes me curious if there are any
particular legends or stories that have left a

341
00:26:02.640 --> 00:26:06.599
lasting impression on you, maybe stories
that you heard growing up. Is there

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00:26:06.640 --> 00:26:11.240
one that is maybe your favorite it's
always at the forefront of of of your

343
00:26:11.279 --> 00:26:17.440
mind. Yeah, I was thinking
about this recently because I got asked.

344
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I got asked this question, I
think like a year or two ago when

345
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I was doing the podcast Mary Go
Around for the Ascienda, And immediately the

346
00:26:29.599 --> 00:26:33.640
thought that comes to mind is like
Laoa, because everybody, everybody, there's

347
00:26:33.680 --> 00:26:37.279
something about that story that is that
cuts to the quick, that hits the

348
00:26:37.319 --> 00:26:42.680
bone. There's and now that I'm
a mother, I think that is definitely

349
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a story that's going to come through
in a particular way. I think in

350
00:26:45.839 --> 00:26:49.240
a few years once that whole like, oh I am recently a parent has

351
00:26:49.319 --> 00:26:53.000
like kind of the raw edges of
that have kind of healed up a little

352
00:26:53.000 --> 00:26:59.079
bit and it feels like ready to
re excavate. But Laonna definitely comes through.

353
00:26:59.720 --> 00:27:07.880
What it comes to the folklore that
I was researching for Vampire Savel.

354
00:27:08.279 --> 00:27:14.240
I went to my grandmother and I
was like, okay. I sat down

355
00:27:14.240 --> 00:27:15.359
at my grandparent's kitchen table and I
was like, all right, laid on

356
00:27:15.440 --> 00:27:18.920
you guys, like what are the
spooky stories that you grew up with?

357
00:27:19.039 --> 00:27:23.720
And I knew that I was going
to be linking my monstrous vampires and vampires

358
00:27:23.720 --> 00:27:30.920
avel not to the legend of Alcoci
and I wanted them to be monstrous and

359
00:27:30.960 --> 00:27:33.079
boogeyman like. And I was like, Okay, did you guys ever hear

360
00:27:33.079 --> 00:27:38.039
anything about Elkuco when you were growing
up? And my grandmother said, yeah,

361
00:27:38.119 --> 00:27:41.160
yeah, yeah, we definitely heard
those stories. They're pretty scary.

362
00:27:41.240 --> 00:27:44.079
My grandpa was like, oh,
yeah, yeah, of course we heard

363
00:27:44.160 --> 00:27:47.359
lay the stories. And my grandma
said, but what my dad would tell

364
00:27:47.440 --> 00:27:51.680
us when he really wanted to scare
us was your mother will hear about this?

365
00:27:52.160 --> 00:27:56.240
And I was it to me,
I throw home, like how the

366
00:27:56.319 --> 00:28:04.359
personalities in my in my family aptly
shaped my fiction for sure, and shaped

367
00:28:04.400 --> 00:28:10.720
my understanding of the stories that are
told about my family and what I have

368
00:28:10.920 --> 00:28:15.599
ended up with as a result.
Other things, I was really interesting.

369
00:28:15.640 --> 00:28:22.000
One thing that's been interesting as I
start to publish fiction that didn't come about

370
00:28:22.039 --> 00:28:26.880
when I was publishing more fantasy work. I have some short stories that are

371
00:28:26.880 --> 00:28:36.359
more inspired by my research looking at
popular medieval Islamic fiction stories. When it

372
00:28:36.400 --> 00:28:40.839
came to writing stories that were closer
to home and the ascienda came out and

373
00:28:40.920 --> 00:28:42.920
my family members read it, or
Vampires of El Nort that came out and

374
00:28:42.960 --> 00:28:51.359
my family members read it, I
was suddenly struck by how many conversations opened

375
00:28:51.440 --> 00:29:00.359
up where my aunts and uncles started
sharing I guess super not they are these

376
00:29:00.359 --> 00:29:03.880
supernatural experiences, although there were some
of those from my aunt amazing love the

377
00:29:03.920 --> 00:29:12.359
stories, but it just created a
space where family members felt that they could

378
00:29:12.519 --> 00:29:18.519
share more with me. My grandma, in particular, I remember having a

379
00:29:18.519 --> 00:29:22.599
conversation with her where she said she
was telling me about her mom, who

380
00:29:22.839 --> 00:29:26.720
was orphaned by the Mexican Revolution in
the way she came to the US and

381
00:29:26.759 --> 00:29:29.640
some of her family members, and
she looked at me and she kind of

382
00:29:29.640 --> 00:29:32.759
cocked her to the side and she
said, I can tell you're writing this

383
00:29:32.839 --> 00:29:34.640
down in your head and you're going
to use it for stories. And I

384
00:29:34.680 --> 00:29:38.640
was like yeah. She said you're
welcome, she said yeah. I was

385
00:29:38.680 --> 00:29:42.480
like, caught right handed, ma'am, what can I say? And she

386
00:29:42.680 --> 00:29:48.079
said, you're welcome to them,
they're yours, which makes me want to

387
00:29:48.119 --> 00:29:52.400
cry. I just got chills.
I just got chills. It's her lasting.

388
00:29:52.480 --> 00:29:56.240
She was the one who told me
to use her last name, Kanye's

389
00:29:56.359 --> 00:29:59.559
as my pen name when I got
my agent way back in twenty seventeen,

390
00:29:59.640 --> 00:30:06.880
so I yeah, lost my trail
of thought, But there is a there

391
00:30:06.920 --> 00:30:08.880
are a lot of you know that. When it comes to people always ask

392
00:30:08.960 --> 00:30:11.359
me about like the spooky stories,
like oh, did you grow like And

393
00:30:11.400 --> 00:30:15.759
of course I immediately said la,
because I love a good ghost story.

394
00:30:15.079 --> 00:30:19.119
I have a fascination with ghost stories, and I'm terrified of them because I'm

395
00:30:18.680 --> 00:30:25.200
a massively. But when it comes
to the folklore that has been passed down

396
00:30:25.240 --> 00:30:30.079
to me, it's a lot more. Uh, It's it's subtle, and

397
00:30:30.119 --> 00:30:37.720
it's very real in some ways.
And I sometimes when it comes to the

398
00:30:37.799 --> 00:30:41.599
kinds of stuff I want to write
in the future, I worry that I'm

399
00:30:41.640 --> 00:30:44.960
just going to be pigeonholed as like
a horror writer for forever, because I

400
00:30:45.039 --> 00:30:48.519
have so many other ways of telling
stories that I want to share with the

401
00:30:48.559 --> 00:30:53.559
world. And when you're of Latin
American descent, everybody, of course is

402
00:30:53.559 --> 00:30:56.960
like, oh, she writes magical
realism, like Theestanda, it's magical realism.

403
00:30:57.359 --> 00:31:00.720
It seems so many things on line
that called at the end of magical

404
00:31:00.759 --> 00:31:04.720
realism, and it's not. It's
got the core. There's no magical thinking

405
00:31:04.759 --> 00:31:07.640
about it. But when I think
about what I write, want to write

406
00:31:07.640 --> 00:31:10.839
in the future, I'm like yeah, I think. I think some magical

407
00:31:10.920 --> 00:31:14.359
realism is in the is in the
cards in the future because of what I

408
00:31:14.480 --> 00:31:18.160
have and what I want to share. Yeah, what my family members have

409
00:31:18.279 --> 00:31:22.759
like given to me. And it's
just it's so cool that you know,

410
00:31:22.039 --> 00:31:27.119
you tell a ghost story and suddenly, because you've had the courage to tell

411
00:31:27.160 --> 00:31:30.559
that ghost story, other people come
to you with more. Maybe you've experienced

412
00:31:30.559 --> 00:31:37.680
this telling absolutely exactly what you do
with Sisto podcasts, Like do people come

413
00:31:37.720 --> 00:31:41.359
to you which with more stories of
Like, I don't know. I feel

414
00:31:41.359 --> 00:31:45.279
like my family don't talk about stuff. They don't talk about the traumas they've

415
00:31:45.319 --> 00:31:52.119
experienced, they don't talk about the
ghosts, they don't talk about things until

416
00:31:52.160 --> 00:31:56.759
suddenly I tell the ghost story and
then they have stories about putt as they

417
00:31:56.799 --> 00:32:00.160
met with my grandmother great grandmother,
And I'm like, what's where are these

418
00:32:00.200 --> 00:32:05.039
stories when I was twelve, Like
they're just coming out now and it's really

419
00:32:05.079 --> 00:32:07.359
precious. Yeah, I love that. And that's something that I say a

420
00:32:07.359 --> 00:32:09.680
lot on the show too, or
when I'm talking with people about these things.

421
00:32:09.799 --> 00:32:14.160
Is I say that for me,
it's about and it's it's an interesting

422
00:32:14.200 --> 00:32:16.319
way to connect with people. But
it's about connecting with people on the level

423
00:32:16.440 --> 00:32:21.680
of fear. I don't know what
it is about being scared that can be

424
00:32:21.839 --> 00:32:25.039
fun. It it brings out or
it not brings out, but maybe it

425
00:32:25.119 --> 00:32:30.519
just like exposes this part of people. And when you see that in each

426
00:32:30.559 --> 00:32:31.960
other, you're like, Okay,
I get you now, I see you

427
00:32:32.039 --> 00:32:36.559
now, and like and then that's
how like the stories keep rolling and then

428
00:32:36.799 --> 00:32:38.720
before you know it, it's three
in the morning and you have to walk

429
00:32:38.960 --> 00:32:46.200
through the driveway of the Danta where
yours saw the dump. Yeah, yeah,

430
00:32:46.400 --> 00:32:51.039
oh wow, I love that.
But it's true. I've definitely found

431
00:32:51.039 --> 00:32:53.720
that, I think because and I
think horror has actually made me a better

432
00:32:53.759 --> 00:32:59.240
writer because it forces you to be
vulnerable, because otherwise it doesn't work.

433
00:32:59.279 --> 00:33:01.119
Otherwise it's like, okay, well
that's shock value. Okay, well that's

434
00:33:01.160 --> 00:33:07.240
a little bit. You know,
it doesn't work unless you are super emotionally

435
00:33:07.279 --> 00:33:09.559
vulnerable. And it's that vulnerability that
I think, you know, when people

436
00:33:09.599 --> 00:33:15.079
see you being like, hello,
I am without my shell, here my

437
00:33:15.160 --> 00:33:19.079
guts, this is what I'm afraid
of. It's so powerful and it's also

438
00:33:19.119 --> 00:33:22.200
so hard to do, so I
don't know, it's really cool. That's

439
00:33:22.279 --> 00:33:25.519
kind of how I feel when I'm
watching scary movies. And I've gone and

440
00:33:25.519 --> 00:33:28.559
recognized said this before. I don't
know if it's a hot take. It

441
00:33:28.640 --> 00:33:34.440
might be, but I feel like
I prefer the movies that I don't even

442
00:33:34.440 --> 00:33:37.079
know how to explain it, but
that are actually scary compared to like a

443
00:33:37.160 --> 00:33:39.680
jump scare. Yeah, I don't. I think jump scares are cheap.

444
00:33:39.799 --> 00:33:44.839
I don't think they're scares. They're
surprises, and I don't like them.

445
00:33:45.839 --> 00:33:49.680
I love that. I love that, I'm using that, I'm pleasing.

446
00:33:49.759 --> 00:33:52.440
That is fantastic. I will good
it your though. That's brilliant. It's

447
00:33:52.480 --> 00:33:58.279
true. Yeah, writing horror,
you don't get those kinds of jump scares,

448
00:33:58.319 --> 00:34:01.480
and so you have to actually write
with scare exactly exactly. I also

449
00:34:01.519 --> 00:34:05.519
wanted to mention I was thinking about
it right now while you're speaking. You

450
00:34:05.559 --> 00:34:07.920
mentioned again in the author's notes,
and I'm referencing Van President Northwi because it's

451
00:34:07.920 --> 00:34:12.039
the I've read both of your novels, but i've read this one more recently.

452
00:34:12.119 --> 00:34:17.559
And you also mentioned in the author's
notes the idea of the Bucci,

453
00:34:17.960 --> 00:34:22.280
which so excited to see because it's
a story, the story of the dog

454
00:34:22.360 --> 00:34:25.000
Boucci is one that I tell at
a lot of live events, and it's

455
00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:30.639
one of my like go to episodes
just because it's so the the actual lore

456
00:34:30.840 --> 00:34:36.400
and I'm sure you know, like
the real story behind it is so troubling,

457
00:34:37.000 --> 00:34:38.599
and so I was really excited when
I saw that you mentioned it,

458
00:34:38.599 --> 00:34:40.480
because I was like, Oh,
somebody else knows about it, and they're

459
00:34:40.480 --> 00:34:45.679
spreading the word like good. I
just yeah, I'm curious about your your

460
00:34:45.719 --> 00:34:49.559
thoughts on the story of the dog
Boucci. Yeah. So, first of

461
00:34:49.559 --> 00:34:52.239
all, I wanted to say this
at the beginning. I so admire how

462
00:34:52.239 --> 00:34:57.320
well researched your episodes are. I
was recently listening to your episode about last

463
00:34:58.400 --> 00:35:02.159
and I just my little historian's heart
was a bitter because I was just like,

464
00:35:02.239 --> 00:35:07.159
this is so well done. You
love it. I love it.

465
00:35:07.199 --> 00:35:13.840
So when it comes to Pucci's,
I was reading about sorceryes in my research

466
00:35:13.880 --> 00:35:19.039
for the Escanda because a spoiler it
is on the back cover copy has a

467
00:35:19.079 --> 00:35:25.880
witch in it and he blends uh
uh. He is of mixed heritage and

468
00:35:25.920 --> 00:35:31.960
as is his magic. And so
I was doing research on sorcery in Central

469
00:35:31.960 --> 00:35:36.840
Mexico and I came across this book
written by some like you know, stuffy

470
00:35:36.960 --> 00:35:43.639
British anthropologist called blood Sucking Witches the
way. I have been searching for that

471
00:35:43.719 --> 00:35:45.960
book high and low. You have
it, do you not? I have?

472
00:35:46.559 --> 00:35:50.039
I'll email it to you. I'm
writing this down right now. I'm

473
00:35:50.039 --> 00:35:52.639
writing this down. I really want
the physical copy too. I don't know.

474
00:35:52.679 --> 00:35:57.000
I'm a physical book kind of person, so I will take the PDA

475
00:35:57.039 --> 00:35:59.559
for sure, But I'm also like
hunting for a copy of that book.

476
00:35:59.559 --> 00:36:02.159
It's so hard to find. It
is so difficult to find. Actually,

477
00:36:02.199 --> 00:36:07.400
I find a lot of like out
of print used academic books on biblio dot

478
00:36:07.440 --> 00:36:12.840
com, I spi dot com.
I've read so many of my books there,

479
00:36:12.880 --> 00:36:15.519
but I also do the PDIF.
But I agree it's it's very dense

480
00:36:15.559 --> 00:36:19.039
and so it's really difficult to read
on a screen. I myself am also

481
00:36:19.119 --> 00:36:22.559
a physical books curly. But I
I got it and I was reading it,

482
00:36:22.599 --> 00:36:27.000
and that's where I came across this
anthropologist who was writing about I think

483
00:36:27.039 --> 00:36:30.079
it's in blast Cola. They were, you know, there was this air

484
00:36:30.159 --> 00:36:37.599
quotes plague of bloodsucking witches or because
I went witches, and I think that

485
00:36:37.679 --> 00:36:42.599
there was there were so and there
are other things that the that the anthropologists

486
00:36:42.599 --> 00:36:45.159
talked about in the book. There
were like different kinds of sorcery, not

487
00:36:45.280 --> 00:36:49.800
hual. It's like all sorts of
stuff. It's it's it's a good read,

488
00:36:51.039 --> 00:36:54.159
lots of footnotes, very dense,
which is my jam. I love

489
00:36:54.199 --> 00:37:01.119
that kind of stuff. But when
I was just struck how much there was

490
00:37:01.280 --> 00:37:07.320
to pick apart when it came to
the Pla pucies, and I felt when

491
00:37:07.320 --> 00:37:12.440
I was putting this book together,
that was in the very beginning that was

492
00:37:12.480 --> 00:37:20.159
the inspiration, because I thought these
young women had you know, as I

493
00:37:20.239 --> 00:37:22.440
understood it from the folklore that I
was reading and this text that I was

494
00:37:22.480 --> 00:37:27.280
reading like literally in two thousand and
one, and I've since like moved across

495
00:37:27.280 --> 00:37:30.760
the country, had a baby,
lost thirty percent of my brain and the

496
00:37:30.800 --> 00:37:36.519
process so as I remember it,
and you please correct, completed your PhD.

497
00:37:36.960 --> 00:37:44.360
Which took a pound of mental flesh
thaking very much. It was my

498
00:37:44.679 --> 00:37:52.079
understanding that flawood Pucci's they didn't unlike
the Western European conception of the vampire,

499
00:37:52.159 --> 00:37:57.079
where it was you know, Dracula
is like I got to asacha blood and

500
00:37:57.079 --> 00:38:00.440
he'll like bite you and then you'll
turn and it has that in sexious quality.

501
00:38:00.880 --> 00:38:07.559
The Lavauci's were born and it manifested
when they hit puberty. And in

502
00:38:07.599 --> 00:38:09.719
the text I was reading that there
were only women, and so I thought,

503
00:38:10.760 --> 00:38:15.199
you know, I think there was
a lot to unpack there in terms

504
00:38:15.239 --> 00:38:22.639
of and they want and they particularly
were interested in the blood of babies more

505
00:38:22.719 --> 00:38:25.039
than anyone else. So they're not
like running around attacking full grown men,

506
00:38:25.119 --> 00:38:30.000
and they were sucking the blood out
of babies. So there's so much to

507
00:38:30.119 --> 00:38:35.280
unpack there. I think in terms
of ways you could retell this tale.

508
00:38:36.239 --> 00:38:39.280
And now that I'm a mother,
I think I can give that. I

509
00:38:39.360 --> 00:38:42.920
think I can have a good whack
at it. I think I can give

510
00:38:42.920 --> 00:38:45.679
it justice. But when it came
to vampires am not I had. There's

511
00:38:45.719 --> 00:38:52.000
so much to unpack in terms of
gender, in terms of like your consent

512
00:38:52.199 --> 00:38:55.039
and becoming a creature like this,
what it means to be a monster.

513
00:38:57.320 --> 00:39:00.320
The way that they hid themselves in
village and kind of tried to fly into

514
00:39:00.320 --> 00:39:04.880
the radar, but then babies would
start dying and they would get hunted out,

515
00:39:04.920 --> 00:39:07.840
you know, stuff like that.
There's a lot there. Yeah,

516
00:39:07.880 --> 00:39:13.239
And there are many layers and when
I was putting together Vampires of Lante.

517
00:39:13.360 --> 00:39:16.079
I was juggling too many balls because
I had the Mexican American War. I

518
00:39:16.119 --> 00:39:23.360
had these this this particular vampiric legend
I had. I wanted to tell a

519
00:39:23.480 --> 00:39:30.760
romance because I loved telling stories that
have romance. My mom jokes that my

520
00:39:30.800 --> 00:39:37.480
brand is spookies and spoo cheese.
I would have way, and I was

521
00:39:37.039 --> 00:39:40.920
in. Nana and Nestot are both
very large personalities with their own personal histories,

522
00:39:40.960 --> 00:39:45.199
and I was juggling and juggling and
juggling, and I realized that something

523
00:39:45.199 --> 00:39:49.719
had to give, and so when
it came to I also had like,

524
00:39:51.400 --> 00:39:53.159
at first, I think in the
very early draft, Nana had some kind

525
00:39:53.159 --> 00:39:59.519
of magical powers. So the book
was even more speculative, more fantasy adjacent

526
00:39:59.559 --> 00:40:01.159
than it ended being in the end. So I had to ask a lot,

527
00:40:01.599 --> 00:40:07.840
and one of those things was that
Pucis themselves unfortunately, because I thought,

528
00:40:07.880 --> 00:40:09.599
you know, this isn't the book
for them. They deserve their own

529
00:40:09.599 --> 00:40:13.320
book. And I believe there are
writers out there who are doing that.

530
00:40:13.440 --> 00:40:20.719
I think David Bowles is doing a
book that has that is inspired by Tlapuccis,

531
00:40:21.480 --> 00:40:27.199
and I am so excited for that
and any other writer who picks up

532
00:40:27.199 --> 00:40:30.039
this legend. But I also want
to have a stab at it, sink

533
00:40:30.079 --> 00:40:36.079
my teeth into it. But I'm
a bunch yeah, I mean, listen,

534
00:40:36.159 --> 00:40:38.119
it's it's something that I It's a
conversation I have a lot with people.

535
00:40:38.320 --> 00:40:42.119
Is I'm like, it doesn't matter
if somebody else is doing it.

536
00:40:42.159 --> 00:40:45.039
You're going to bring your own perspective
to it, your own unique take,

537
00:40:45.119 --> 00:40:46.719
So just do it either way.
There's room for all of us. People

538
00:40:46.760 --> 00:40:52.159
can read more than one book,
absolutely absolutely, And I think that's something

539
00:40:52.159 --> 00:41:00.559
that particularly plagues marginalized writers because there
is a sense in traditional publishing that you

540
00:41:00.800 --> 00:41:06.840
are the token fill in the blank
writer, You are the token Mexican writer,

541
00:41:07.079 --> 00:41:10.480
and there can be no one else, like publishing will not stick its

542
00:41:10.519 --> 00:41:16.920
neck out for anyone else. So
when actually when Mexican Gothic came out in

543
00:41:16.960 --> 00:41:22.199
twenty twenty, and my book then
was about to go on submission to editors,

544
00:41:22.519 --> 00:41:25.880
and I my heart sank because I
thought, you know, I was

545
00:41:25.880 --> 00:41:29.480
so excited for this book because it
was exactly what I wanted to read.

546
00:41:29.559 --> 00:41:34.199
But I thought, oh no,
they have their Mexican book already about the

547
00:41:34.239 --> 00:41:37.519
Haunted House. They're not going to
want mine. Fortunately I was wrong.

548
00:41:38.199 --> 00:41:44.440
Yeah, thank goodness. They publishing
is discovered that there is an audience for

549
00:41:44.480 --> 00:41:47.239
these I mean, duh, there
is an audience for these kinds of stories.

550
00:41:47.280 --> 00:41:52.559
But they're sticking. They've seen like
God bless Usantha said on mo No

551
00:41:52.639 --> 00:42:00.000
Garcia, because she showed publishing that
they can make a tidy book over these

552
00:42:00.079 --> 00:42:01.800
kinds of stories, and so they're
more willing to stick their next out.

553
00:42:02.280 --> 00:42:07.000
The powers that be in the publishing
Ivory Towers in New York City are more

554
00:42:07.039 --> 00:42:12.719
willing to stick their next out and
take chances on stories like the Atanda and

555
00:42:12.800 --> 00:42:15.599
other ones that are coming up.
One of my friends just told me that

556
00:42:15.639 --> 00:42:20.039
she sold, and she's a Latin
American writer, she sold her whole novel,

557
00:42:20.039 --> 00:42:25.760
and I was like, yeah,
so much. Absolutely, people want

558
00:42:25.800 --> 00:42:30.079
it, people are hungry for it. So I mean, and I'm excited

559
00:42:30.119 --> 00:42:32.440
to hear that as well. It's
I always I'm always looking for these kind

560
00:42:32.440 --> 00:42:36.159
of stories. So yeah, I'm
so glad that you did not let that

561
00:42:36.320 --> 00:42:38.199
doubt get in the way and that
you went for it. And to anybody

562
00:42:38.239 --> 00:42:42.880
else that might be hearing this,
heed these words, go for it.

563
00:42:44.880 --> 00:42:46.519
The shots you don't take. There's
an audience, there's a market, and

564
00:42:46.599 --> 00:42:54.000
traditional publishing is a lot. But
they're listening. They're listening to us,

565
00:42:54.360 --> 00:43:19.280
So make yourself heard. So I
have a question another one. I mean,

566
00:43:19.480 --> 00:43:22.840
that's what we're doing, right,
but a very special question. I

567
00:43:22.880 --> 00:43:28.440
want to know if you have your
own personal experiences with the paranormal. So

568
00:43:29.840 --> 00:43:42.679
yeah, I have a lot of
adjacent experiences in one that well, it's

569
00:43:42.679 --> 00:43:45.519
not entirely my own story to tell. So I'm going to give you,

570
00:43:45.599 --> 00:43:52.920
like the cliff Notes version, if
you will. I have often been asked

571
00:43:52.920 --> 00:43:58.519
in interviews like why are you drawn
to ghost stories? Why are you drawn

572
00:43:58.760 --> 00:44:07.079
to these, like this mode of
storytelling, this tone in storytelling, And

573
00:44:07.840 --> 00:44:13.800
I didn't have an answer except for
the fact that I love it. Since

574
00:44:13.840 --> 00:44:19.800
I was young, I have always
been deliciously terrified by ghost stories. I

575
00:44:19.880 --> 00:44:22.480
am not the kind of I think
there are two kinds of horror writers.

576
00:44:22.800 --> 00:44:25.039
In my head, I call them
edge lords and weenies. Be edge lord

577
00:44:25.039 --> 00:44:31.360
writers, you know, really enjoy
slasher films and like consume all kinds of

578
00:44:31.400 --> 00:44:35.920
horror content and are there for the
gore and there for the violence, and

579
00:44:35.960 --> 00:44:37.880
there for the ghost stories and things
that keep them up at night. And

580
00:44:37.920 --> 00:44:43.840
then there are those of us who
have really active imaginations who are scared shitless

581
00:44:43.840 --> 00:44:50.880
by this stuff but can't stay away, And I count myself in that party.

582
00:44:51.800 --> 00:44:55.039
I am a leany horror writer.
I feel like a fraud sometimes because

583
00:44:55.039 --> 00:44:59.880
who am I to be talking about
horror fiction when, honestly, like anything

584
00:45:00.079 --> 00:45:01.840
like, I struggle to watch scary
movies because it just cares me so much.

585
00:45:01.880 --> 00:45:07.920
So anyway, ghost stories, I
didn't have any answer for why I

586
00:45:07.960 --> 00:45:09.519
was drawn to this kind of thing, except for the fact that once you

587
00:45:09.599 --> 00:45:14.599
have a taste of that kind of
fear, you keep coming back to it.

588
00:45:14.599 --> 00:45:20.320
It's I think, like you mentioned
earlier, it's it's incredible the kind

589
00:45:20.320 --> 00:45:23.400
of high almost you get from connecting
to people and other stories this way.

590
00:45:23.519 --> 00:45:29.280
It's unlike anything else other genres have
to offer, I think in terms of

591
00:45:29.360 --> 00:45:36.239
media, but on a more personal
level. With the Ascienda, I spoke

592
00:45:36.280 --> 00:45:40.079
a lot about how one of the
houses I lived in when I was a

593
00:45:40.159 --> 00:45:46.280
kid was haunted and my aunt had
an experience in the house. But even

594
00:45:46.360 --> 00:45:53.559
before then, I had a daughter
recently and like kind of like how my

595
00:45:53.639 --> 00:45:59.599
book babies, their births opened up
new conversations with family members. Having an

596
00:45:59.639 --> 00:46:04.360
actual, real life child opened up
a number of conversations with family members that

597
00:46:04.400 --> 00:46:08.679
I haven't had before. And I
had a conversation with my mom about the

598
00:46:08.760 --> 00:46:15.320
night I was born, and I
my mom experienced an enormous amount of trauma

599
00:46:15.320 --> 00:46:21.440
when she was pregnant with me and
lost someone very very close to her.

600
00:46:22.119 --> 00:46:27.199
And so I think I'll say is
the night I was born. At the

601
00:46:27.400 --> 00:46:30.960
six am in the morning I was
born, there was presence in the room,

602
00:46:31.639 --> 00:46:36.760
and so that was my entry into
the world, and it was a

603
00:46:36.800 --> 00:46:39.599
welcome one, a happy one.
So I don't know why I'm so drawn

604
00:46:39.679 --> 00:46:45.840
to, like why the fear side
of experiences that we can explain like that.

605
00:46:46.360 --> 00:46:51.039
But this house that I lived in
when I was about six years old

606
00:46:51.159 --> 00:46:53.840
and then we moved to Mexico City, moved back, so like eight,

607
00:46:54.000 --> 00:46:58.639
nine, ten years old, a
basement that was very very dark and very

608
00:46:58.719 --> 00:47:02.039
very sketchy, and my aunt came
to stay with us to look after to

609
00:47:02.039 --> 00:47:05.840
help my mom look after us because
I'm one of well then we were four,

610
00:47:05.920 --> 00:47:07.480
but I'm one of five, so
there's a lot of looking after it

611
00:47:07.519 --> 00:47:16.599
to And she was asleep in my
sister's bedroom and she felt somebody bending over

612
00:47:16.639 --> 00:47:20.440
her, you know when you're like
kind of sort of awake and you kind

613
00:47:20.440 --> 00:47:22.400
of feel just like, oh,
someone's there, so you wake up a

614
00:47:22.440 --> 00:47:29.000
little bit. And she thought it
was my mom, and it was a

615
00:47:29.039 --> 00:47:32.239
woman in a green dress with her
hair like pulled tight back in a shing

616
00:47:32.239 --> 00:47:43.039
gone who just then stood up and
then vanished. And yeah, And when

617
00:47:43.079 --> 00:47:45.280
my aunt told me this, I
was like, I knew that how it

618
00:47:45.360 --> 00:47:47.800
was haunted. I knew it.
I knew I knew it. I knew

619
00:47:47.840 --> 00:47:53.400
it. Yeah, the house had
fines. And when my dad wanted my

620
00:47:53.639 --> 00:47:58.960
parents were you know, it was
the nineties. They believed in timeouts in

621
00:47:59.000 --> 00:48:04.159
the basement. My dad rather was
if we were really naughty, which I

622
00:48:04.199 --> 00:48:07.519
often was, because I've always said
what I think, which is, you

623
00:48:07.559 --> 00:48:12.599
know, it gets you into travel. Sometimes I spend a lot of time

624
00:48:12.760 --> 00:48:16.480
at the bottom of the basement stairs
and time out in the dark, just

625
00:48:16.639 --> 00:48:20.360
you know, scaring at the darkness. But at least you weren't alone.

626
00:48:21.400 --> 00:48:29.880
Yeah, god, yeah, it
was there. Yeah. So those are

627
00:48:29.880 --> 00:48:35.519
my two I've had. I've lived
in houses that have I lived in a

628
00:48:35.599 --> 00:48:38.159
number of houses when I was growing
up. We moved every four years,

629
00:48:38.679 --> 00:48:42.679
not because I'm a military brat or
anything, but just because my parents,

630
00:48:43.280 --> 00:48:46.079
you just kind of had itchy feet. Were always on the move for my

631
00:48:46.119 --> 00:48:51.199
dud's job, for family stuff,
whatever. And I lived in I think

632
00:48:51.360 --> 00:48:57.440
nine houses between when I was born
and when I went away to university.

633
00:48:58.000 --> 00:49:00.840
And when I went away to university, I lived in a lot of very

634
00:49:00.880 --> 00:49:06.280
old buildings in the United Kingdom.
And you know, beneath all those layers

635
00:49:06.320 --> 00:49:09.639
of paint and wallpaper, there's layers
of other stuff too. So I've never

636
00:49:09.800 --> 00:49:15.360
had like another like an experience like
my aunt's in that one house where I've

637
00:49:15.639 --> 00:49:22.920
seen someone or something, but I've
felt vibes, for lack of a better

638
00:49:23.000 --> 00:49:29.760
term, and I think, yeah, there's it's it's sometimes weird to talk

639
00:49:29.760 --> 00:49:36.119
about with people because you're you think
with you, for example, I feel

640
00:49:36.119 --> 00:49:42.960
really comfortable sharing this stuff because like
this is you've shared stuff on the podcast

641
00:49:43.480 --> 00:49:46.920
in terms of like this is your
whole shtick, and so because you talk

642
00:49:46.960 --> 00:49:50.679
about these things, I want to
talk about them too. It goes back

643
00:49:50.679 --> 00:49:53.760
to what I was saying before.
But like my sisters and I've talked about

644
00:49:53.760 --> 00:50:00.079
it a little bit, but like
when I think about when my husband and

645
00:50:00.079 --> 00:50:02.039
I, for example, we're going
to go look at a potential house that's

646
00:50:02.039 --> 00:50:06.280
for sale in a nearby neighborhood,
and I know if I walk in and

647
00:50:06.280 --> 00:50:08.440
I get the bad vibes, we're
out, no question. When we were

648
00:50:08.480 --> 00:50:14.400
house hunting when we first moved to
Seattle last year, I walked into one

649
00:50:14.480 --> 00:50:17.320
house and I was like, nope, hard, hard, don't And he

650
00:50:17.480 --> 00:50:23.599
was so frustrated because he couldn't sense
it. I tried to explain it,

651
00:50:23.639 --> 00:50:27.800
and I can't, like explain it. Yeah, you have to trust that

652
00:50:27.840 --> 00:50:30.320
intuition, you do, and you
know that intuition led meek to the house

653
00:50:30.320 --> 00:50:35.960
we live in now, which I
adore. So yeah, so you're welcome,

654
00:50:36.039 --> 00:50:38.920
husband. Yeah, I point that
out often. I had a meltdown

655
00:50:39.280 --> 00:50:43.000
and I say you're welcome. For
that melt down to him all the time.

656
00:50:43.000 --> 00:50:45.000
Whatever. He's like, I love
this bit about our house. I'm

657
00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:46.719
like, you're welcome, sir,
You're welcome. How did we get here?

658
00:50:46.800 --> 00:50:52.239
Huh h It was because we listened
it to me exactly. Oh my

659
00:50:52.280 --> 00:50:57.480
goodness. So I want to ask
and kind of we both do different things

660
00:50:57.519 --> 00:51:00.239
but also maybe similar in some ways. But the role of like storytelling and

661
00:51:00.639 --> 00:51:07.599
folklore. What kind of role do
you think that plays in preserving and transmitting

662
00:51:07.639 --> 00:51:13.079
culture. It's huge. I think
it's really huge. It's so important because

663
00:51:13.159 --> 00:51:19.320
you know, those are our documents. When I was doing my PhD,

664
00:51:19.719 --> 00:51:25.880
I my dissertation was about a particular
story that, before it was written down

665
00:51:25.920 --> 00:51:31.920
on paper in the thirteen sixties,
was orally transmitted. It was there.

666
00:51:31.960 --> 00:51:36.360
It was a bunch of stories that
were very similar to like King Arthur and

667
00:51:36.400 --> 00:51:42.639
his Knights at the Round Table,
so popular, kind of the equivalent of

668
00:51:42.840 --> 00:51:46.880
soap opera e Gims of Game of
Thronies, like genre, that kind of

669
00:51:46.960 --> 00:51:55.000
like feel of story. And when
it was put down on paper by a

670
00:51:55.079 --> 00:52:00.880
particular guy in the fourteenth century,
that's when it was like committed to history.

671
00:52:00.960 --> 00:52:06.039
And that's how I, hundreds of
years later, was able to read

672
00:52:06.079 --> 00:52:09.639
it in fourteenth century Turkish, which
took a lot of homework. Yeah,

673
00:52:10.159 --> 00:52:15.400
But when I was thinking about that, I thought a lot about how much

674
00:52:16.119 --> 00:52:20.880
was preserved by the oral transmission,
and how much was lost by the oral

675
00:52:20.920 --> 00:52:23.440
transmission, and how much we can't
know. I, as a historian,

676
00:52:23.480 --> 00:52:29.400
am only left with what's written down
on the page. And you can feel

677
00:52:29.639 --> 00:52:34.599
the when when you read the text
you can actually feel the texture or of

678
00:52:34.639 --> 00:52:37.719
the orality behind it and the cadence
and the words they're chosen. I can.

679
00:52:37.800 --> 00:52:42.960
I'm gonna slow my role here so
I don't get too nerdy about it,

680
00:52:43.280 --> 00:52:45.679
but it got I was finishing my
dissertation at the Saint on this text

681
00:52:45.760 --> 00:52:49.599
at the same time that I was
writing Vampires of Ante, and I think

682
00:52:50.079 --> 00:52:54.079
that the two are They're not twins, they're sisters, you know, like

683
00:52:54.079 --> 00:53:00.360
your eyebrows, and they definitely have
that. I was bringing that same brain

684
00:53:00.599 --> 00:53:10.360
to both works because when I think
of the oral transmission that has occurred in

685
00:53:10.400 --> 00:53:14.840
my family, like I maybe it's
because of who I am as a writer,

686
00:53:15.079 --> 00:53:16.800
maybe it's because of who I am
as a historian. But I'm desperate

687
00:53:16.840 --> 00:53:22.880
to write it down so that it
is not lost. But oral transmission and

688
00:53:22.920 --> 00:53:32.920
storytelling has done so much, like
work to preserve a culture that American imperialism

689
00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:39.199
and colonialism has done its darnedest to
try in a race, and it's an

690
00:53:39.239 --> 00:53:45.599
act of resistance. I think telling
these stories it's a very powerful act when

691
00:53:45.599 --> 00:53:51.119
you think about it, even if
they're dumb stories, like even if it's

692
00:53:52.679 --> 00:53:58.559
really quiet personal stories it's very special
and I think it's really important. And

693
00:53:58.840 --> 00:54:05.440
I when I was researching Vampires of
vel note, in addition to like chatting

694
00:54:05.440 --> 00:54:07.760
with my grandparents and listening to what
my mom and her sisters had to say

695
00:54:07.760 --> 00:54:15.000
about growing up in the valley,
I also read a lot of folklore research.

696
00:54:15.880 --> 00:54:23.440
There are a lot of folklorists at
UT Austin at other universities who were

697
00:54:23.599 --> 00:54:28.840
writing things down in the thirties and
forties. And there's one named Kopita Gonzalez

698
00:54:28.880 --> 00:54:34.079
who wrote I mentioned a bunch of
her books in the author's note. She

699
00:54:34.239 --> 00:54:37.760
was hugely inspirational, so she was
a folklorist. So she kind of she

700
00:54:37.840 --> 00:54:39.599
grew up in the valley and she
in South Texas. I don't know in

701
00:54:39.599 --> 00:54:45.559
the valley particular, but definitely South
Texas and Anancho, and she went around

702
00:54:45.639 --> 00:54:52.760
collecting these orally transmitted stories and she
put them down on paper and they're incredible.

703
00:54:53.360 --> 00:54:59.159
They're so great, Like they are
ghost stories, they're monster stories.

704
00:54:59.159 --> 00:55:02.679
There's stories of about the devil on
horseback and he's like this dashing like you

705
00:55:02.719 --> 00:55:09.719
know not he's like this dashing type
on horseback, chatter on horseback and like

706
00:55:09.760 --> 00:55:13.239
a black suit and the black boots, the black hat, and I'm like,

707
00:55:13.360 --> 00:55:16.719
yes, this is delicious, give
me more. But she preserved that,

708
00:55:16.960 --> 00:55:22.519
and that is exactly what colonists coming
to Texas wanted to get rid of.

709
00:55:22.679 --> 00:55:27.159
You know. She was not allowed
to teach certain topics, like my

710
00:55:27.239 --> 00:55:31.199
grandma would talk about how in the
fifties in the valley, like like there

711
00:55:31.199 --> 00:55:39.679
were certain things air quotes couldn't talk
about. The culture of silencing was very

712
00:55:39.719 --> 00:55:45.159
pervasive, and when my mom was
growing up in the sixties, there was

713
00:55:45.320 --> 00:55:47.639
I don't know if your family's experienced
this too, but there was a very

714
00:55:50.000 --> 00:55:54.000
there's very strong belief in her family
that they could not speak English with an

715
00:55:54.039 --> 00:55:59.639
accent, and so they spoke no
Spanish at all to my grandparents, spoke

716
00:55:59.679 --> 00:56:06.119
no all too directly to my mom
and aunts and uncles. So the erasure

717
00:56:06.320 --> 00:56:09.559
was attempted, it was done,
and I think, like the language stuff

718
00:56:09.559 --> 00:56:14.239
in particular, like what was the
end goal of it, To make sure

719
00:56:14.280 --> 00:56:19.119
that my mom and her siblings had
a better life. I am that better

720
00:56:19.199 --> 00:56:22.119
life and I'm ready to fix this
shit, you know, yeah, yeah,

721
00:56:22.199 --> 00:56:24.639
Oh my god, I'm gonna grab
my microphone because I'm trying so hard

722
00:56:24.639 --> 00:56:30.199
to not scream right now, because
this is everything you're saying, I'm like,

723
00:56:30.880 --> 00:56:36.199
yes, oh my god. Like
speaking of just this conversation, it

724
00:56:36.239 --> 00:56:39.639
makes me think of I'm from a
really small town called Elsa. It's part

725
00:56:39.679 --> 00:56:45.480
of ed Kelchelsa in the Rio Grande
Valley. And this idea of like the

726
00:56:45.480 --> 00:56:49.360
way the stories that we were or
they were were not allowed to tell,

727
00:56:49.960 --> 00:56:53.440
even down to how they were not
allowed to tell them the language thing like

728
00:56:53.480 --> 00:56:58.760
growing up in when my mom was
in school or my grandmother, she she

729
00:56:58.840 --> 00:57:00.400
wasn't allowed they it was from upon
to speak Spanish. They would get in

730
00:57:00.400 --> 00:57:05.519
trouble. So growing up, you
know, I am a Nosavo kid,

731
00:57:05.559 --> 00:57:08.079
you know, and I'm trying really
hard to reverse that. But because the

732
00:57:08.159 --> 00:57:13.639
idea was our kids are going to
have a better life if they speak English

733
00:57:13.880 --> 00:57:19.559
fluently and well and if they're articulate
and so you know, that's why that

734
00:57:19.639 --> 00:57:23.599
kind of like value or quote unquote
value was instilled in us. But also

735
00:57:23.639 --> 00:57:27.840
makes me think of any reason I
mentioned at Colchelsa is because in I think

736
00:57:27.880 --> 00:57:31.239
it was nineteen sixty eight, uh, a student at at Culchelsa High School

737
00:57:31.639 --> 00:57:36.159
staged a walkout and when it went
down in history as a really important event

738
00:57:37.239 --> 00:57:43.159
to protest the discrimination that the Mexican
students, Mexican American students were facing at

739
00:57:43.159 --> 00:57:49.000
the high school. Several of them
were suspended, and I always forget if

740
00:57:49.039 --> 00:57:54.280
it was was it Lahoya, Yes, it was okay, my boyfriend giving

741
00:57:54.320 --> 00:58:00.679
the thumbs up, it was that
that. Yeah. La Joyad also in

742
00:58:00.679 --> 00:58:05.239
the regranded Valley, was the only
school district in the valley that accepted the

743
00:58:05.239 --> 00:58:12.000
suspended students from my couchel SA.
So in my heart, yeah, nineteen

744
00:58:12.000 --> 00:58:14.679
sixty eight, but yeah, in
my heart there is an ex couchelice La

745
00:58:14.719 --> 00:58:20.159
joya solidarity that I'm always so like
grateful for. But yeah, this conversation

746
00:58:20.320 --> 00:58:22.599
even down to how these stories are
told, in what language they are told,

747
00:58:24.039 --> 00:58:28.880
And yeah, this idea of what
is what is preserved or lost by

748
00:58:28.920 --> 00:58:32.920
way of oral storytelling, It's kind
of an idea that I'm also trying to

749
00:58:32.960 --> 00:58:43.239
tackle with SUSTO, is continuing that
tradition of oral storytelling but documenting it.

750
00:58:43.280 --> 00:58:45.840
You know, I'm able to now
document it in a digital space and also

751
00:58:45.920 --> 00:58:51.119
to open it up to conversation because
i mean, I'm just part of this

752
00:58:51.400 --> 00:58:52.440
tradition, you know, I'm not
the end all, be all. My

753
00:58:52.480 --> 00:58:57.880
word is not final by any means
on these stories. So yeah, that's

754
00:58:57.960 --> 00:59:00.159
I just wanted to have this conversation
with you about deserving culture because you do

755
00:59:00.280 --> 00:59:05.239
such a beautiful job of it in
your books and your liting. Thank you.

756
00:59:05.320 --> 00:59:07.559
No, I think what you're doing
is like is immense, and it's

757
00:59:07.639 --> 00:59:14.039
resistance and it's powerful. So keep
fighting a good fight. Yes, absolutely,

758
00:59:14.159 --> 00:59:16.840
so we're nearing the end. I
have just a couple more questions.

759
00:59:17.960 --> 00:59:23.800
You've covered greed and malevolent hauntings in
Laasenda, and a complex love story,

760
00:59:23.840 --> 00:59:30.119
and vampires and vampires of Norte.
Are there any specific topics or aspects of

761
00:59:30.159 --> 00:59:35.039
folklore that you feel eager to dive
into with upcoming projects that you can reveal

762
00:59:35.119 --> 00:59:38.239
to us? When you said me
this question, I was like, yes,

763
00:59:38.599 --> 00:59:45.760
I have so much. I have
so much. So I have.

764
00:59:46.559 --> 00:59:52.840
I was raised very conservative Catholic.
My dad is an Opus Stay, which

765
00:59:52.880 --> 00:59:59.199
is a very right wing branch of
the Catholic Church or sect cult if you

766
00:59:59.280 --> 01:00:02.159
will, a product of fascist Spain, and boy does it act like it.

767
01:00:04.719 --> 01:00:12.840
And so I ran away so far
and so fast from everything Catholic when

768
01:00:12.880 --> 01:00:16.079
I became a young adult, and
I just find myself writing my way back

769
01:00:16.079 --> 01:00:19.440
to it because it's in my DNA, whether I like it or not.

770
01:00:20.000 --> 01:00:27.199
So one topic I really want to
tackle is One thing I keep finding myself

771
01:00:27.280 --> 01:00:36.119
drawn to is folks Saints La Santa
is really interesting to me. I am

772
01:00:36.199 --> 01:00:45.360
really interested in demonic possession. Terrifies
me, scares my little socks off,

773
01:00:45.639 --> 01:00:50.039
and so I obviously have to write
about it. If Yes, Janda didn't

774
01:00:50.039 --> 01:00:53.159
get me the religious intervention from my
father, then maybe this book well,

775
01:00:53.960 --> 01:01:01.880
so I'm definitely playing with that.
I am also drawn to like more subtle

776
01:01:02.519 --> 01:01:07.800
witchcraft, if you will. My
after the Attanda came out and after van

777
01:01:08.239 --> 01:01:12.559
Fires Vampires of ellum If they came
out, and I started having more conversations

778
01:01:12.559 --> 01:01:16.760
with my mom's siblings, I think
I've they've shared a lot of stuff with

779
01:01:16.800 --> 01:01:21.400
me that makes me think, like
I need to write a witchcraft book for

780
01:01:21.440 --> 01:01:29.599
sure, one that is more informed
by subtle. I hesitate to use the

781
01:01:29.599 --> 01:01:34.679
word real, because like what is
real and what is speculative? I think

782
01:01:34.719 --> 01:01:39.960
that line gets very blurred in some
cases. But I definitely want to play

783
01:01:40.039 --> 01:01:45.880
in that blur in terms, and
I do want to come back to club

784
01:01:45.920 --> 01:01:52.119
with which she's I There is a
book by a guy a folklorist as well,

785
01:01:52.440 --> 01:01:57.760
called Americo Pareres. It's called folk
Tales of Mexico. I was able

786
01:01:57.760 --> 01:02:01.239
to find the copy on biblio dot
com. Out of print and very old,

787
01:02:01.679 --> 01:02:08.719
but it is full of really great
ghost stories and like Bacco tell tales

788
01:02:09.400 --> 01:02:14.800
and monsters, and there are a
few monsters in there I want to play

789
01:02:14.800 --> 01:02:20.679
with. I really am drawn to
like Tales of the Devil. I think

790
01:02:20.719 --> 01:02:24.639
the Devil as like personified as like
this chadro and black and he's like very

791
01:02:24.679 --> 01:02:31.239
dashing and stuff. I think that's
that draws me. So when it comes

792
01:02:31.320 --> 01:02:36.880
to my future work, I want
to be six different writers at once,

793
01:02:37.199 --> 01:02:38.639
Like with my chort fiction. You
mentioned like I'm all over the math in

794
01:02:38.679 --> 01:02:42.599
terms of genre. There's fantasy,
there's science fiction, there's horror. I'm

795
01:02:42.639 --> 01:02:45.800
like, yes, I am all
over the math. I want to be

796
01:02:45.880 --> 01:02:49.480
all of these writers at once,
and no matter what I do, I

797
01:02:49.559 --> 01:02:53.159
keep getting yanks back to this particular
kind of space. You know that Vampires

798
01:02:53.159 --> 01:02:57.199
of El Norte is said in that
the Yesianda is said in that. I

799
01:02:57.239 --> 01:03:04.559
think the Vampires of El Norte universe, if you will that space that folkloric

800
01:03:05.400 --> 01:03:10.679
tone almost is it just won't let
go on me. Yeah, so I

801
01:03:12.440 --> 01:03:15.280
think whether I like it or not, I'm going to end up writing more

802
01:03:15.599 --> 01:03:19.760
stuff like that. Well, I
mean, I certainly can only hope so,

803
01:03:19.880 --> 01:03:22.559
and I know there will be other
people out there that will agree with

804
01:03:22.599 --> 01:03:24.280
me. I mean, I also
do hope that you get to, you

805
01:03:24.320 --> 01:03:29.639
know, write what you want to
write, and you can span across any

806
01:03:29.679 --> 01:03:32.559
genre you want to. But I
definitely enjoy this part of your work.

807
01:03:35.440 --> 01:03:38.880
And on a final note, for
any maybe writers or creators listening, do

808
01:03:38.920 --> 01:03:44.199
you have any advice for people who
are interested in exploring their own cultural heritage

809
01:03:44.679 --> 01:03:49.920
and their creative work. Yeah.
I struggled with this a lot, I

810
01:03:49.960 --> 01:03:59.079
think because I received the implicit message
that my the stories I had to tell

811
01:03:59.119 --> 01:04:04.800
were not air quotes good enough.
You are enough, is what I have

812
01:04:04.880 --> 01:04:10.320
to say. And the stories you
have to tell are enough, and they're

813
01:04:10.360 --> 01:04:15.880
yours and there's no one else who
can tell them. We need them.

814
01:04:17.239 --> 01:04:25.239
So I hope that any writers out
there listening horse who are struggling to you

815
01:04:25.320 --> 01:04:28.960
know, if you want to write
about other things, do it Like I

816
01:04:29.039 --> 01:04:34.480
wrote fantasy for years before I had
the courage. If you will to turn

817
01:04:34.559 --> 01:04:42.039
back and start to write about this. I think it probably. I think

818
01:04:42.880 --> 01:04:46.519
I hope younger writers especially have had
more therapy than me and are able to

819
01:04:46.559 --> 01:04:50.760
turn back in Delvin's Doo topics sooner. I don't think any word you write

820
01:04:50.800 --> 01:04:59.360
is wasted. I think every paragraph, every sentence is a step towards a

821
01:04:59.559 --> 01:05:04.079
better is a step towards braver writing. But whenever you're ready, little writer

822
01:05:04.199 --> 01:05:09.039
like, please tell us the stories. We need them and they are acts

823
01:05:09.039 --> 01:05:13.119
of resistance. Yeah, my god, thank you, thank you, thank

824
01:05:13.159 --> 01:05:16.639
you so much for your words,
both today and written. Thank you.

825
01:05:16.719 --> 01:05:20.159
I'm so glad that you like like. I cannot tell you, Maiden,

826
01:05:20.239 --> 01:05:25.960
how afraid I was to publish vampiresivel
NOTEA because when it comes to second books

827
01:05:26.000 --> 01:05:31.199
in particular, I was so overjoyed
that the Atanda found its readership and that

828
01:05:31.599 --> 01:05:35.239
readers were really excited about it,
and I was worried that vampiresvel Note would

829
01:05:35.239 --> 01:05:39.079
be a disappointment because it's different.
You know, it's a different book,

830
01:05:39.119 --> 01:05:45.639
it's a different vibe, and I've
been I've never been happier to be so

831
01:05:45.840 --> 01:05:50.199
wrong. Well, let me just
tell you the Essanda I read on the

832
01:05:50.280 --> 01:05:56.280
kindle and vam president, I have
the physical copy your Your books are the

833
01:05:56.280 --> 01:06:00.000
only books that I've ever done this
with. If you're watching on page,

834
01:06:00.320 --> 01:06:02.800
you're seeing I have tabs all throughout
the book. I've never done this with

835
01:06:02.840 --> 01:06:11.199
other books. So seeing my absolute
sheer delight. So as an academic,

836
01:06:11.360 --> 01:06:15.480
like, there's no greater compliments,
Yeah, I'd like. I was like,

837
01:06:15.480 --> 01:06:18.039
I don't know when I will go
through these. Maybe if we're like

838
01:06:18.079 --> 01:06:20.840
bonus content in the future, I'll
go through all of my tabs for people

839
01:06:20.880 --> 01:06:25.280
who have read the book with me. But yeah, it's just I cannot

840
01:06:25.280 --> 01:06:30.159
recommend your writing enough to the people
out there, and you can you shore

841
01:06:30.199 --> 01:06:32.440
with people where they can find you
online if they're looking. Yeah, yeah,

842
01:06:32.480 --> 01:06:34.760
So social media is a bit of
a trash fire at the moment.

843
01:06:34.840 --> 01:06:43.800
I can be periodically found haunting Instagram
at Isabel Kanya underscore so I S A

844
01:06:43.960 --> 01:06:48.519
D E L C A N A
s underscore. I am occasionally chaotic on

845
01:06:48.559 --> 01:06:53.320
threads. Who knows how long that
social that platform in particular is gonna last.

846
01:06:53.440 --> 01:06:58.039
Yeah. Place I always ad them
will always be is my newsletter buttoned

847
01:06:58.079 --> 01:07:02.119
down dot com sorry, buttoned dot
email. Slash is about Kanye The link

848
01:07:02.199 --> 01:07:05.400
to. It is on my website
and it will be in the description of

849
01:07:05.440 --> 01:07:11.400
this episode. Yeah, spun dot
com. That is where I'm at.

850
01:07:11.679 --> 01:07:17.920
So I think my newsletter is the
That's where the latest updates happen. I've

851
01:07:17.960 --> 01:07:24.920
recently started sharing like snippets of my
writing short stories future projects, of which

852
01:07:24.920 --> 01:07:30.719
I have several baking in the oven
right now. So yeah, it's aboutkanyas

853
01:07:30.719 --> 01:07:33.119
dot com. That's where you'll find
links to everything awesome. Thank you so

854
01:07:33.239 --> 01:07:38.360
much. And do you have a
couple of minutes for some Patreon questions?

855
01:07:38.679 --> 01:07:41.840
I do, all right. Well, if you are listening to this right

856
01:07:41.840 --> 01:07:45.760
now, this next section will only
be available via Patreon dot com. Slash

857
01:07:45.800 --> 01:07:51.239
Susto podcast for best Cool Friends.
You can also watch this entire episode on

858
01:07:51.360 --> 01:07:56.840
video. These are our faces and
yeah, so we're gonna go ahead and

859
01:07:56.920 --> 01:08:18.600
get into those Welcome back with friends. Thank you once more for listening.

860
01:08:18.680 --> 01:08:24.239
And wasn't Isabelle just amazing? I
had so much fun again, it was

861
01:08:24.359 --> 01:08:28.039
just like hanging out with a friend. We talked a little bit after recording

862
01:08:28.159 --> 01:08:31.479
and I was like, we're basically
besties now we will be next time you're

863
01:08:31.479 --> 01:08:35.960
in Austin hanging out and just talking
all things spooky and nerdy and history.

864
01:08:36.079 --> 01:08:40.600
So excited to have had her on. It was such an honor. And

865
01:08:40.640 --> 01:08:43.039
again, if you have not read
her books or any of her short writing,

866
01:08:43.119 --> 01:08:45.640
I highly recommend that you go and
seek that out. Again. All

867
01:08:45.640 --> 01:08:48.359
the links to follow her are in
the description of this Patreon post with the

868
01:08:48.399 --> 01:08:53.399
video or the episode. Wherever you're
listening or watching, you already know about

869
01:08:53.439 --> 01:08:57.039
sending in your own stuff, about
interacting with the show, about leaving the

870
01:08:57.119 --> 01:08:59.760
ratings and the reviews. It's the
easiest way to support the show. But

871
01:09:00.039 --> 01:09:03.279
also if you are a Patreon member
on patreon dot com slash Systal podcast,

872
01:09:03.600 --> 01:09:08.680
then you had the opportunity to also
watch this episode. Along with that,

873
01:09:08.760 --> 01:09:13.119
there was some bonus content. We
did, some extra questions and a fun

874
01:09:13.279 --> 01:09:18.239
kind of like writing exercise if you
will, for the Best Cool Friends Patreon.

875
01:09:18.399 --> 01:09:23.319
So again, thank you Isabelle for
your time, and thank you listener

876
01:09:23.560 --> 01:09:27.319
for your time dropping by and listening. Goole friends. I forgot to record

877
01:09:27.479 --> 01:09:31.000
the Patreon shout out on the video
version of this for Best Cool Friends.

878
01:09:31.039 --> 01:09:33.520
So Best Cool Friends, I'm so
very sorry, but I hope you will

879
01:09:33.560 --> 01:09:39.319
be distracted by the flashiness of a
video the bonus content to this episode,

880
01:09:39.359 --> 01:09:43.880
but for everybody else and of course
including the best cool friends on the audio

881
01:09:43.960 --> 01:09:45.880
version only of the episode. I
want to give a huge shout out to

882
01:09:46.039 --> 01:09:50.399
all of this episode's patrons. You
already know your support means the world to

883
01:09:50.479 --> 01:09:56.039
me, and you are Liza,
Sadie, Rachel, Alejandra Luther, April,

884
01:09:56.199 --> 01:10:00.640
Mario, Eva d Victoria, Josette, Angela and Co. Mandy,

885
01:10:00.840 --> 01:10:05.520
Jules, Lori, Genie, Desiree, a Anna c Ashes, Needessa Rachel

886
01:10:05.680 --> 01:10:12.600
Asukena, Rios, Anna, Marlen, Chata Laney, Desiree, se Aliyah

887
01:10:12.960 --> 01:10:15.960
Hawley and Cynthia. Thank you all
so so much. I will talk to

888
01:10:16.000 --> 01:10:19.000
you on the next one, and
until then, visit your local library and

889
01:10:19.039 --> 01:10:57.159
check out a book, preferably one
by Isabel kas Bye